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Church Hierarchy
Church Hiearchy are the levels of hiearchy in the church. There are three levels, Episcopate, Presbyterate , and Diaconate. Laity Most of the people of God are the laity, a term derived from Greek λαὸς Θεοῦ (Laos Theou), meaning "people of God". All Christian faithful have the right and duty to bring the gospel message increasingly to "all people in every age and every land". They all have a share in the Church's mission and have the right to undertake apostolic activity according to their own state and condition. Lay ministry can take the form of exercising the priesthood of all the baptized, and more specifically undertaking the work of catechists. serving the Church pastorally, administratively, and in other ways, including the liturgical services as acolytes, lectors, cantors, and the like, initiation sponsors, pastoral care ministers, and members of parish and diocesan consultative bodies. Some lay Catholics carry out full-time professional and vocational service in the name of the Church, rather than in a secular calling. Though the phenomenon is widespread in North America and much of Europe, the organization and definition of the ministry is left to national bishops conferences. The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops has adopted the term lay ecclesial ministry for these individuals, as intentionally distinct from the general apostolate or ministry of the laity described above. Deacons Deacons are ordained ministers of the Church who are co-workers with the bishop alongside priests, but are intended to focus on the ministries of direct service and outreach to the poor and needy, rather than pastoral leadership. Priests Parochial Vicars These priests help the pastor. They do not run the parish. In General Bishops are assisted by priests and deacons . All priests and deacons are incardinated in a diocese or religious order. Parishes, whether territorial or person-based, within a diocese are normally in the charge of a priest , known as the parish priest or the pastor. In the Latin Church, only celibate men, as a rule, are ordained as priests. The Catholic Church and the ancient Christian Churches see priestly ordination as a sacrament dedicating the person ordained to a permanent relationship of service, and, like Baptism and Confirmation , having an ontological effect on the person. It is for this reason that a person may be ordained to each of the three orders only once. They also consider that ordination can be conferred only on males. Monsignor Monsignor is an honarary term given by the pope. The Vatican reduced levels of Monsignor to 1, but there were more before 2014. Bishops Auxiliary Bishops An auxiliary bishop is a bishop assigned to assist the diocesan bishop in meeting the pastoral and administrative needs of the diocese . Auxiliary bishops are titular bishops of sees that no longer exist. Coadjutor Bishops The Coadjutor Bishop of a see has the right of succession on the death or resignation of the Diocesan Bishop, and, if the see is an archdiocese, holds the title of Archbishop. Diocesan Bishops The bishop or eparch of a see , even if he does not also hold a title such as Archbishop , Metropolitan, Major Archbishop, Patriarch or Pope , is the centre of unity for his diocese or eparchy, and, as a member of the College of Bishops, shares in responsibility for governance of the whole Church. As each local particular Church is an embodiment of the whole Catholic Church, not just an administrative subdivision of something larger, the bishop who is its head is not a delegate of the Pope. Instead, he has of himself primary teaching, governance and sanctifying responsibility for the see for which he has been ordained bishop. Archbishops The title of archbishop is held not only by bishops who head metropolitan sees, but also by those who head archdioceses that are not metropolitan sees (most of these are in Europe and the Levant). Metropolitans A Latin Church Metropolitan is the bishop of the principal (the "metropolitan") see of an ecclesiastical province composed of several dioceses . The metropolitan receives a pallium from the pope as a symbol of his office. The metropolitan bishop has limited oversight authority over the suffragan dioceses in their province, including ensuring that the faith and ecclesiastical discipline are properly observed. He also has the power to name a diocesan administrator for a vacant suffragan see if the diocesan council of consultors fails to properly elect one. His diocesan tribunal additionally serves by default as the ecclesiastical court of appeal for suffragans (court of second instance), and the metropolitan has the option of judging those appeals personally. Primates The Latin Church title of primate has in some countries been granted to the bishop of a particular (usually metropolitan) see. It once involved authority over all the other sees in the country or region, but now only gives a "prerogative of honor" with no power of governance unless an exception is made in certain matters by a privilege granted by the Holy See or by an approved custom. The title is usually assigned to the ordinary of the first diocese or the oldest archdiocese in the country. Cardinal Cardinals are princes of the Church appointed by the Pope . He generally chooses bishops who head departments of the Roman Curia or important episcopal sees throughout the world. As a whole, the cardinals compose a College of Cardinals which advises the Pope , and those cardinals under the age of 80 at the death or resignation of a Pope elect his successor. Their heraldic achievement is surmounted by the red galero and tassels as a form of martyred position in the Church. Major archbishops Some autonomous particular Churches are headed by a major archbishop. The Syro-Malankara Catholic Church uses the title Catholicos for their major archbishop. With few exceptions, the authority of a major archbishop in his sui iuris Church is equivalent to that of a patriarch in his Church. This less prestigious office was established in 1963 for those Eastern Catholic Churches which have developed in size and stability to allow full self-governance if historical, ecumenical, or political conditions do not allow their elevation to a patriarchate. Patriarchs The heads of some autonomous (in Latin, sui iuris) particular Churches consisting of several local Churches (dioceses) have the title of Patriarch. The pope, as patriarch of the Latin Church, is the head of the only sui iuris Church in the West, leading to the relatively short-lived title Patriarch of the West (in use 1863–2006). Eastern patriarchs are elected by the synod of bishops of their particular Church. These have authority not only over the bishops of their particular Church, including metropolitans, but also directly over all the faithful. Eastern Catholic patriarchs have precedence over all other bishops, with the exceptions laid down by the Pope . Pope (Bishop of Rome) "Pope" is a pronominal honorific, not an office or a title, meaning "Father" (the common honorific for all clergy). The honorific "pope" was from the early 3rd century used for any bishop in the West, and is known in Greek as far back as Homer's Odyssey (6:57).Three other of the pope's offices stem directly from his office as bishop of the Church of Rome. As the Latin Church owes its identity and development to its origins in the liturgical, juridical, and theological patrimony of Rome, the bishop of Rome is de facto the patriarch of the Latin Church. According to no less than Pope Benedict XVI , there has been much 'confusion' between the pope's primacy as patriarch of the western church and his primacy as first patriarch among equals, that this "failure to distinguish" between the roles and responsibilities of these two distinct positions lead in time to the "extreme centralization of the Catholic Church" and the schism between East and West.The pope resides in Vatican City, an independent state within the city of Rome, set up by the 1929 Lateran Pacts between the Holy See and Italy. As popes were sovereigns of the papal states (754–1870), so do they exercise absolute civil authority in the microstate of Vatican City since 1929.